SM, Do you think this obscene borrowing by the Abbott government has anything to do with the "I'll buy the boats" line or could it be to pay off the mega rich "baby makers", which one is it, could it be both?

Foxy, "Our voters have the right to use their rights in a meaningful way - they can't if they're lied to"

More of the authoritarian Left's theme that the public cannot be relied upon to sort the wheat from the chaff and exercise judgement. The public don't know what is best for them but the authoritarian left does.

The authoritarian Left would fix the news sources and government publicity to ensure the public got the 'right' information. It is called censorship. It is denial of freedom of speech.

Dear Chris,

In practice, the socieites we consider democratic
are those that have institutionalised procedures
for periodically choosing among contenders for
public office. They have representative democracy:
voters elect representatives who are responsible for
making political decisions. In all democracies the
right of the individual to choose among the alternatives
is held in high regard, and this right pre-supposes
such basic civil liberties as freedom of speech and
assembly and it requires its citizens to be able to make
informed choices. It is therefore important as I stated
earlier that public officials tell the truth.

You disagree - that's fine. We'll have to agree to disagree
on this issue.

Cheers.

You people keep raving on about Democracy. Can't you for just one minute accept reality & leave the non-existing democracy out of the debate ?
It is pointless to debate about democratic ways when there is no democracy, let's focus what is & discuss minority rule dictatorship.

Dear Individual,

Talking about "minorities?"

The Liberal Party is a perfect fusion and is even known
as the "Coalition."

The origins of the Liberal Party was the
"Fusion Liberals" begat the "Nationalist Party"
which begat the ironically named "United Australia
Party: which begat, by a charismatic wave of Mr
Menzies hand, the Liberal Party.

The Libs are a "Coalition," and they
wouldn't survive in politics on their own. Yet they criticised
Labor when Labor was forced to form a government with
its own "Coalition."

Pot/kettle.

As for my raving about our representative democracy?
It's a system I've been socialised to believe in.
I've taken the legitimacy of this particular system
for granted very early in life. Of course I also
do believe that we should face the challenges before us
and hold our leaders to account - that's why having
them tell us the truth is so important at least to me.
You of course are welcomed to disagree.

When I invented the term "left whingers" I never imagined quite how apt it was. The level of histrionics on this thread is at record levels.

To call the coalition liars as you are doing, they either have to be doing something they promised not to, such as Juliar's no carbon tax guarantee, or have indicated that something they guaranteed to do, they will not be doing.

To refresh the memories of the left whingers on this site suffering from selective amnesia and hypocrisy:

Included in the coalitions promises PRIOR to the election:

1) $5bn for infrastructure over the next 4 years. Hockey planning an infrastructure spend is therefore not a backflip.

2) $20m (no more) set aside for buying boats that could be used by human traffickers, and money to be set aside to pay for intelligence. These have been earmarked to be allocated in conjunction with the Indonesians - so far no broken promise.

3) Turning back the boats, already rescues in Indonesian waters have been returned, and at the meeting, while Abbott promised to respect Indonesia's sovereignty, he made it plain that Australia considers the Indonesian boats illegally entering Australian waters as infringing Australian sovereignty. Further discussions will occur in a bilateral committee that Labor failed to achieve.

So far the coalition is proceeding to plan as promised before the election.